1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates to a method for the determination of a shared jackpot winning of a gambling apparatus, where the gambling apparatus comprises coin-operated gambling machines, wherein the gambling machines are interconnected and jointly fill a jackpot, and wherein a predetermined part of the gambling bet of each gambling machine is employed to fill the jackpot, and wherein the filling level of the jackpot is displayed on the gambling machine and with a large display.
2. Brief Description of the Background of the Invention Including Prior Art
An arrangement of the gambling apparatuses is known from the U.S. Pat. No. 5,116,055, where the gambling apparatuses jointly fill a jackpot. In these win-payout gambling machines, such as for example slot machines, poker machines, or bingo machines, a progressive jackpot is filled in addition as a function of the number of the coins played instead of a fixed maximum winning. This progressive jackpot is displayed to the player, on the one hand, on a large display and, on the other hand, on a numerical display on the gambling machine. The gambling machines are set and adjusted such that the jackpot is filled by a percentage of the coin value, determined and set once by the operating management of the gambling machines, of the respectively played coin value. The control of the entire jackpot system is performed according to the U.S. Pat. No. 5,116,055 with its own control unit, where the control unit is connected to each gambling machine of the jackpot system through an interface unit disposed at the respective gambling machine. The progressive jackpot is triggered in each one of the gambling machines upon reaching of a predetermined winning symbol combination or other predetermined events. A further win-triggering event can for example be the reaching of a jackpot threshold value unknown to the user of the gambling machine and accidentally obtained by the user of the gambling machine. The achieved jackpot amount can only be triggered by one gambling machine and the total amount of the jackpot is coordinated to this gambling machine or, respectively, paid out to this gambling machine. Since the symbol-representing display means of the gambling machines connected to a jackpot can be different, for example, reels, flip-card carousels, or video displays, and thus a different symbol combination variety can be displayed, it is provided that, depending on the representable combination variety of symbol combinations and on the respective gambling bet at the respective gambling machines, a different amount of the gambling bet is branched off for the jackpot filling for each gambling machine depending on the representable symbol combinations of the gambling bet. It is however a disadvantage in this context that the respective jackpot amount is coordinated only to the triggering gambling machine. Furthermore, in case of a hardware failure or a software failure of the central control unit, the total jackpot system for the jackpot will succumb to failure.